by Patrick L. Cahalan

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Softening

Now we get to work and turn this (fairly) sharp image of a champagne cocktail into something a bit more diffused, using the following method. Note that a lot of the “soft effect” is really driven by the opacity levels – without that, this doesn’t work nearly as well.

Duplicate layer (Ctrl+J)

Under filter, use the unsharp mask, set to 150%, 1.5 px radius, and threshold of 10.